When I realised the 2023 Grammys were on and saw that Beyoncé was trending, my first thought was ‘finally’. Finally, Beyoncé has won Album of the Year for her seventh studio album, ‘Renaissance’, an album that was undoubtedly — whether you’re a Beyoncé fan or not — the album of the year. (That and ‘Crash’ by Charli XCX, which wasn’t even nominated because, as she says, “people don’t wanna see hot evil girls thrive”, but that’s another issue.)
However, despite years of backlash about this exact situation — including Adele herself telling Beyoncé on stage that ‘Lemonade’ should have won the award when she, instead, won in 2017 — the Grammys still hasn’t got it right.
Instead, Harry Styles took home the night’s biggest accolade for his second studio album, ‘Harry’s House.’ An album that was nowhere near as good — or as well received by fans and critics alike — as his first, let alone on the same playing field as ‘Renaissance.’ To make matters worse, Styles didn’t appear to be clued in on the travesty of it all, saying in his acceptance speech, “It’s not often people like me win things like that.” Him being an able-bodied white man, of course.
Naturally, Jay Z agrees the Grammys got it wrong (again). In an interview with Tidal Magazine, which took place ahead of the awards ceremony, the rapper spoke about why his wife deserved to win Album Of The Year.
“Look what it’s done to the culture,” he said of ‘Renaissance’. “Look how the energy of the world moved. They play her whole album in the club. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that. The whole entire joint — like, everything?! Every remix is amazing. Everyone’s inspired. It has inspired the world. Every remix is better than the other one.”
After years of Beyoncé losing in the category — she’s been nominated for Album of the Year four times and has never won — the publication asked Jay Z if he allowed himself to feel confident about the prospect of her finally getting her dues, or if he tried to emotionally remove himself from the process.
“Yeah, I remove myself from the process and hope they just get it right,” he responded, adding, “It got to the point where I was like, it’s just a marketing thing. You go, you got an album out and it could help the sales go up. It got to that point, but deep down … Again, we grew up idolising this. It was like one of the pillars for us. It was like, ‘We want to go Gold.’ Yeah, I’ve been in it that long.”
On the night, Beyoncé made history, breaking the record for the most Grammy wins of all time, taking home four awards, including Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for ‘Renaissance’. This makes her total Grammy wins to 32. 32 and still no Album of the Year? Are they trolling us?
